The best part is that some of these suggestions (such as parcel forwarding) can be used to bypass some of the government's own idiotic censorship program on game contents, like the guidelines that prevent zombie-based games from being released in australia. (yes, I know that it's not called censorship, but if refusing a game an official rating prevents it from being sold there, the end result is the same)

Typical market bullshite, so sick of anything that locks me out I just boycott it and only use the products/services that I can actually get past and working.

The excuse that there are not enough people to make money off of in the Asia-Pacific region needs to STOP, allow us to use it and we will be willing to pay if its worth our money its that fucking simple.

Doesn't Australia have a large VAT like Europe? Shouldn't things cost ~20% more there because of the difference between a 5% sales tax in the US and a ~25% VAT in Australia?

If I'm mistaken, then I take it all back. Aussies are getting screwed and should rise up.

Even if that's the case, it would correspond to a ~$70US price for games on Steam; very few US titles go this high.

The gaming industry attempted raising the pricing on new Triple A titles to a 70$ entry price a few years ago. I remember seeing Afro Samurai for that price in stores and thinking they were finally getting too greedy.

Fast forward a few months later where it only got up to 60$ again and it seems that gamers as a whole agreed that this was just getting too expensive.

Australia has GST instead of VAT and is only 10%. Steam prices are fortunately more reasonable than the companies listed in the article, usually +/- $5. Usually games sold at stores are around $100 on release, which makes console gaming quite expensive here.

But software pricing in Australia tends to be skewed far to the expensive side of things

Logic implies that if different pricing structures are applied throughout the world, someone has to be on the "expensive side of things." Is there any research done into which markets specifically get to be on the "cheaper" side of things?

I would almost welcome an honest answer that simply states the facts: these companies want to make as much money as possible. Lowering prices = less revenue. What mega corp CEO wants that? Any other reason is simply disingenuous. I'm glad Australia is looking for ways to bypass this.

'There are issues, though, with the committee's recommendation that Australians do what they can do circumvent or avoid geo-locks on software—mainly that avoiding geo-locks may not be possible within the bounds of Australian law, which has some anti-circumvention provisions similar to those in US law.'

so the answer is, unless it is too painful to the wallets of policy makers to say it, get rid of all the stupid fucking copyright laws from everywhere and let people do what they should be able to, what they want with stuff they have legally bought! this pandering to the US entertainment industries has truly back fired on the Aussie people. not only can they not do what they want with what they have bought, they are charged a damn site more for the privilege! how absolutely ridiculous is that? bloody two faced arse holes in Hollywood etc want to be strung up by the short and curlies!!

'There are issues, though, with the committee's recommendation that Australians do what they can do circumvent or avoid geo-locks on software—mainly that avoiding geo-locks may not be possible within the bounds of Australian law, which has some anti-circumvention provisions similar to those in US law.'

so the answer is, unless it is too painful to the wallets of policy makers to say it, get rid of all the stupid fucking copyright laws from everywhere and let people do what they should be able to, what they want with stuff they have legally bought! this pandering to the US entertainment industries has truly back fired on the Aussie people. not only can they not do what they want with what they have bought, they are charged a damn site more for the privilege! how absolutely ridiculous is that? bloody two faced arse holes in Hollywood etc want to be strung up by the short and curlies!!

Reading this, I became curious as to how the prices differ between my country (Denmark) and the US. I've always assumed prices here were larger, because of our VAT (well, called »moms« here) at 25%.

So, for a simple test, I went to Microsoft's homepage and looked up how much Windows 8 costs in Denmark (899.00 DKK) and in the United States (119 USD). The difference was a 34% increase (~159.81 USD in Denmark).

One may think that's simular to Australia, but Australia's GST is 10% and Australia speaks English (Windows 8 has to be translated to Danish before sold in Denmark).

For the record, Windows 8 costs 149.99 AUD (~138.50 USD), which is less than the Danish price. If we remove GST/VAT from both prices, it's 136.35 AUD and 719.20 DKK for the Australian and Danish product, respectively. Or ~125.91 USD and ~127.84 USD, respectively, which is practically the same price. Despite, I'd imagine, that translating the product costs more (and Denmark only has 5 million citizens, and not all of those are potential customers).

The best part is that some of these suggestions (such as parcel forwarding) can be used to bypass some of the government's own idiotic censorship program on game contents, like the guidelines that prevent zombie-based games from being released in australia. (yes, I know that it's not called censorship, but if refusing a game an official rating prevents it from being sold there, the end result is the same)

Since you mentioned 'zombie-based games', I assume you're referring to the previous lack of R18+ rating for games. The missing R18+ rating was not an "idiotic censorship program", but rather just a case of policy lagging behind technology. In any case, that policy problem has been fixed now anyway.

Pricing in different markets, on one hand, is a corner stone of basic economics. In the olden days, businesses and consumers would haggle on price until they found a price that both could agree on. In the 20th century, people started advertising prices, and suddenly haggling went away. The price was the price. However, different people are willing to pay different prices based on their personal preferences and income, so how does a company get that back?

One of the most common ways is coupons. A person who walks in pays full price while couponers exchange some time and effort and maybe advertising for a reduced price. Sales became another way.

Geolocking is a more extreme method, and a hold over from when people didn't have as much communication as they do now with the internet.

Economically, it makes sense to the supplier. However, as part of consumer protection, it reduces choice. At least with coupons and sales, you have some choice as to when and how you buy it based on time period (though some situations are so extreme so that people ONLY have time to coupon and can ONLY afford things during sales, thus reducing true choice). With Geolocking there is no such choice. It's easier and Easier to transfer data and content across the world, but companies continually try to create artificial barriers in order to control how much money comes in. Countries need to reduce the power of media companies like this so that consumers can get more buying power for their dollar.

I would almost welcome an honest answer that simply states the facts: these companies want to make as much money as possible. Lowering prices = less revenue. What mega corp CEO wants that? Any other reason is simply disingenuous. I'm glad Australia is looking for ways to bypass this.

Lower prices may also lead to more sales so it is not all that simple. With digital downloads that can dramatically decrease expenses per unit as well.

I know this doesn't really apply to the software in the main article but people in the forums have mentioned steam.

I'm based in the UK, and occasionally am asked to buy games to gift to friends in Europe (they're happy to pay me for it) occasionally get things cheaper (not so much with steam, usually applies more to hard-copy games) or bypass the censored/gore filtered versions they'd get if they bought it in their own country (e.g. through their own steam account).

To a certain extent governments can blame themselves for a lot of these issues. Companies have to license different patent portfolios for different countries which adds a large legal cost as well as licensing cost to doing business there. If the patent and copyright laws are more complicated in a country you can expect larger licensing. Especially in the case of a companies like Adobe, there would be a lot of patents related to imaging, video codecs, etc that would all differ in different countries.

Even if a product runs a risk of embargo because of these issues, or other laws that come up companies will have to build that risk into the price. I'd guess that's a large reason of why games cost more there. Who knows when a new 'family friendly' law will come out that makes the sale/marketing/development of a game more expensive with the burden on the developer.

I am not sure if this is actually irony, but I find it funny that Australian government urging their citizens to bypass a lock while implementing their own lock (Internet filtering) and telling the citizens that they'll like it.

So finish what you started and legalize circumvention! Anti-circumvention laws never had anything to do with copyright anyway.

But without the anticircumvention laws then the hackers and pirates will take everything and we'll go bankrupt. You don't want us to go bankrupt, do you?

Also, anti-circ laws have loads to do with copyright. The main part being a way for companies to get around that oh-so-annoying fair-use clause to screw the consumer further. The rest is for anti-competative behavior and general ass-hattery.

Exchange rate doesn't correlate to how much a unit of currency is worth to users of that currency. I live in a US city where $10.50 an hour is the minimum wage, and as US minimum wage goes that's an exorbitant rate. Minimum wage in, say, Melbourne, starts at AU$15 an hour, with significant comps awarded for evening shifts (10-15%), weekends (25%), public holidays (150%), and casual employment status (25%) (casual employment = paid leave waived in favor of bigger paychecks).

Businesses charge for goods and services what the market will bear. The Australian government has decided through legislative means that their market will bear about twice as much as what the US market can bear. Can you really blame multinational companies for taking advantage within Australia?

Apple and Microsoft largely pulled into line when the issue was first raised. The disparity was 100% markup with only 10% going to tax.I have a policy that I actively discourage anyone I know from buying from a "gouger", but support fair companies.For the person who said that costs were high because of patents, care to give an example? The worst case figures don't add up, and I HIGHLY doubt this caused the disparity, regardless.

Exchange rate doesn't correlate to how much a unit of currency is worth to users of that currency. I live in a US city where $10.50 an hour is the minimum wage, and as US minimum wage goes that's an exorbitant rate. Minimum wage in, say, Melbourne, starts at AU$15 an hour, with significant comps awarded for evening shifts (10-15%), weekends (25%), public holidays (150%), and casual employment status (25%) (casual employment = paid leave waived in favor of bigger paychecks).

Businesses charge for goods and services what the market will bear. The Australian government has decided through legislative means that their market will bear about twice as much as what the US market can bear. Can you really blame multinational companies for taking advantage within Australia?

Apple used to charge a lot more in Australia for their hardware and software. They stopped that practice years ago, well before this parliamentary inquiry even started. In fact, right when this inquiry was announced a few months ago, I looked through Apple's AU and US stores and compared pricing.

Apple is charging a rate, for both hardware and software, very close to the US rate + GST (in the US, sales tax isn't included in listed prices, it's tacked on at the end, because sales tax varies at the state, county and city level and is impossible to account for until you plug in your billing ZIP code). The AU dollar is hovering very close to the US dollar in exchange value (sometimes more, sometimes less), so this is pretty much how you should want it to be.

Music licensed through the iTunes store is a totally different problem.